Scandalous romance revealed a century on

Pictures courtesy of the National Trust

A real life scandal involving a secret marriage between a Wakefield heir and a showgirl will be aired on radio.

Rowland George Winn, the son of Lord St Oswald and heir to Nostell Priory, tied the knot with chorus girl and actress Evie Carew in 1915 - without telling his friends and family.

***Pictures must be credited to the National Trust**
In a week of special programmes made in partnership with Imperial War Museums, BBC Radio Leeds, BBC Radio York and BBC Radio Sheffield will broadcast more World War One At Home stories at 8.15am from Monday 2 - Friday 6 June. On Thursday 5 June BBC Radio Leeds will revisit a scandal which saw the heir to the stately home, Nostell Priory in Wakefield, secretly marrying a chorus girl, rocking the world of the aristocracy and jeopardising his own military career. Rowland George Winn, the son of Lord St Oswald secretly married actress Evie Carew in 1915. Winn was forced to resign his commission with the Coldstream Guards since it was a royal regiment and he had married a commoner. But Winn entered the Royal Flying Corps in 1916, reaching the rank of Captain and pursuing a distinguished military career. In time Evie was accepted by the family and the couple enjoyed a long and happy marriage. Picture shows Evie Winn with son Rowland

His shocked parents only found out about the secret marriage months later when it was exposed by the Daily Mirror in a double page spread.

The scandal was uncovered by people who are conducting a Heritage Lottery Fund project which is helping to reveal how the First World War affected the family, their staff and the community.

Dr Sarah Burnage, who is leading the project, says as son and heir a lot was expected of Rowland - and the marriage rocked a family already saddled with mounting debt.

She said: “There was a lot of expectation on Rowland George Winn which makes his marriage to a chorus girl seem all the more dramatic and sensational and problematic for the family.

Pictures courtesy of the National Trust

“We have done some digging here and her real name was not Evie Carew, it was Nellie Greene.

“We found out that her father was a restaurant manager, her sister married a miner and her brother worked on the stage. She was from a very different social class to Rowland Winn.”

The Daily Mirror story headlined ‘the peer and the chorus girl’ ran just after Christmas on December, 27.

And when the secret marriage became public Winn was forced to resign his commission with the Coldstream Guards - because it was a royal regiment and he had married a ‘commoner’.

23rd September 2010. Nostell Priory, near Wakefield.

Dr Burnage added: “It must have been devastating news and such a scandal. His marriage had quite significant consequences.

“The Coldstream Guards is associated with the royal household and a rule had been brought in that actresses could not be presented at court.

“So when he married Evie he had to resign his commission and instead join the Royal Flying Corps.”

Despite the shock it is believed his parents were eventually won round and Evie became Lady Winn when her husband inherited his title after the war.

Letters from Rowland to his father tried to persuade him of Evie’s “better qualities”.

He describes her as ‘anything but the average chorus girl’ and says she is ‘incredibly charming’.

Despite that, it appears that Evie was not wholly accepted as her name is not listed among the guests at family functions.

But a generation later the archives revealed that the actress-turned-Lady was immersed in the life of Nostell Priory and the community.

Their story will be told as part of World War One At Home - local stories from a global conflict on BBC Radio Leeds, BBC Radio Sheffield and BBC Radio York from 2 - 6 June.

The story of the Wakefield heir and the actress - and the marriage which rocked their families - will be on BBC Radio Leeds on Thursday June 5 at 8.15am.

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

Wakefield Express provides news, events and sport features from the Wakefield area. For the best up to date information relating to Wakefield and the surrounding areas visit us at Wakefield Express regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website Wakefield Express requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.